


Two Vampires One Braincell

by Padawan_Writer



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, And that was it for the rest of the evening, Based on a Tumblr Post, Brought to you from this sleep deprived frazzled brain, Crack, Each Chapter Is A Standalone Story, Established Relationship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I mean I just saw it and screamed PRINXIETY, Idiots in Love, Just the hassle of being immortal, Like seven hundred years established, M/M, So Vampire AU but no blood sucking, they’re so in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29310783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padawan_Writer/pseuds/Padawan_Writer
Summary: Was that…hishandwriting? Roman peered at the letter in the low lit display case. All those curly tailed letters—black ink—little flowers drawn in the margins—itwashis handwriting. Good thing it was his best and there were only a few spelling mistakes, being in a display case and all… hang on. A display case… aboutlove.Back in 1863, Roman wrote his vampire boyfriend a passionate love letter. Now it’s on display in the British Museum. The manager is about to receive a visit from two very cross vampires.Update! I’m adding more stories to this collection!
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Comments: 40
Kudos: 132





	1. The misadventure of the lost letter

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this Tumblr post that I found on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/623889354628579090/

Roman always loved going to museums. He told himself it was a chance to gloat about how little mere mortals knew about all the history he’d seen with his own eyes, but in reality, it was a chance to catch up on all the history he’d missed out on, what with being in the wrong place at the wrong time and having an absolute talent for missing out on what everyone else considered to be incredibly important events. And then, there was the fact that because he was immortal, he was expected to know everything about everything about history and art and science, and gosh darn he couldn’t remember what he’d had for dinner last week let alone four centuries ago: and a random round of names he might have been introduced to at a party one time was never going to stick with him even if one of those names became world famous twenty-odd years later. Museums helped him sound like he knew what he was talking about when he came out to people that he was a gay immortal vampire.

He always invited Virgil along to his museum forays, but Virgil always refused, because according to him they reminded him too uncomfortably of the inevitable terrifying existential passage of time, whatever that meant, and all Roman’s arguments that he was an immortal for goodness’ sake—and therefore didn’t have to worry about the passage of time—were to no avail.

The reason Roman was waltzing into the British History Museum this fine morning was because there was a special exhibition on Queer Love Through The Ages, and that was something Roman figured he knew something about. After all, he and Virgil had been a couple for what… hundreds of years? Roman screwed his face up trying to remember. It had been after some war… one of the ones where they still had swords, back in the good old days. Roman decided that maths had never been his strong point. Anyways, it had all been very romantic.

Ah, romance! Roman couldn’t wipe the beaming smile off his face as he wandered through the exhibition and admired the art and photos and old handwritten letters of passionate love… wait wait wait. _Rewind._ Was that… _his_ handwriting? Roman peered at the letter in the low lit display case. All those curly tailed letters—black ink—little flowers drawn in the margins—it _was_ his handwriting. Good thing it was his best and there were only a few spelling mistakes, being in a display case and all… hang on. A display case… about _love._

_Dearest Virgil, dark and stormy knight, commander of my heart, stars of my night sky…_

Oh my gosh oh my gosh it was one of his old love letters to Virgil. Oh gosh. This was just too embarrassing. His love letter, just there for everyone to see! What if someone found out he wrote it?! He would just die of embarrassment. And Virgil… Virgil was a hundred times more sensitive to this sort of thing, he would worse than die, he would live his eternity in embarrassment. He had to tell him.

Roman whipped out his phone.

 **Roman** : Virgil  
**Roman** : my dark and stormy night  
**Roman** : commander of my heart  
**Roman** : Stars of my night sky

He figured his metaphors were good enough to be used again, right?

Virgil finally came online.

 **Virgil** : Yeah Princey my love what the fuck is it now  
**Virgil** : I’m very busy being a gothic vampire trying to run a gothic castle  
**Roman** : Virgil  
**Virgil** : It’s fucking expensive living here I need funds the paperwork’s a bitch  
**Roman** : _Virgil_  
**Virgil** : The things I suffer for the aesthetic  
**Roman** : VIRGIL  
**Virgil** : WHAT  
**Roman** : YOU LOST THE LETTER I WROTE YOU  
**Virgil** : WHAT LETTER I LOSE THINGS ALL THE TIME HELL I CAN’T KEEP TRACK OF ALL MY HUNDREDS OF YEARS WORTH OF STUFF ALSO WHY ARE WE WRITING IN CAPS LOCK  
**Roman** : BECAUSE THE LETTER I WROTE YOU IS ON DISPLAY IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM  
**Virgil** : WHAT THE FUCK PRINCEY  
**Roman** : I’M SERIOUS  
**Virgil** : SEND A PICTURE

Roman made sure his flash was off as per museum instructions and took a photo. He sent it to Virgil.

Virgil was absolutely livid. He told Roman to wait right there while he came down and they’d both make the bloody museum curators take it out because they couldn’t have that kind of cringe on _display,_ it was just creepy and honestly he would drop dead of embarrassment on the spot if not for the inconvenience of being unable to die unless under specific circumstances.

 **Roman** : But Virgil you live in a castle in Scotland it’ll take you hours to get here  
**Virgil** : time is an inevitable terrifying existential construct which we live outside of it doesn’t matter just have lunch or something but DON’T DO ANYTHING until I get there  
**Virgil** : We’ll face them down together  
**Roman** : I’ll nip back to my flat and get my sword  
**Virgil** : Good idea

It was late afternoon by the time Virgil finally arrived in London. Roman was still sitting in the museum café, armed with his sword, scrolling through Tumblr (one of the few places where people actually believed he was a vampire). 

Virgil kissed him in the mouth and slid into the chair opposite. “Fucking historians! I must have lost it in the move and then they just claim it’s history and finders keepers and boom suddenly it belongs to the public or the Queen or whatever shit and no matter what you do you can’t get it back!” he grumbled, reaching across the table and grabbing Roman’s half eaten croissant and stuffing his face with it.

Roman nodded along. “I lost two of my favourite suits of armour like that,” he mourned. “But together we can face them down and rightfully reclaim what is ours!” He held out his hand to his beautifully goth vampire boyfriend, who quickly stuffed the last of the croissant in his mouth and took his hand.

The manager had had a rather trying day. A man dressed up as some kind of medieval prince and an emo in a suit and a patched purple hoodie holding hands and yelling incoherent things at her in her office was the last thing she needed today. “Slow down, slow down. Gentlemen, what exactly is it that you want me to do?” She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“You have one of our letters on display, and if you had any sense of _honour_ and _decency_ you’d take it out right now and give it back!” Roman declared.

“Dude, do you know how cringey it is that all those people are just reading it?” Virgil shuddered. “Any minute now they’re gonna just _know_ it was us, and then—“

“Virgy, how could they possibly know it was us?” Roman interrupted.

“Because, like, they could—they could…” Virgil trailed off. “Good point.”

“So what I’m to understand is that we have a family heirloom of yours on display in the museum?” The manager asked calmly.

“No, not a family heirloom, my dear lady, a love letter that I wrote to my chemically imbalanced romance here,” Roman explained.

“His boyfriend.” Virgil clarified.

The manager took a swig of her tea and checked the clock. Only half an hour until closing time. “But gentlemen, we have no personal items in the exhibition that are under one hundred years old.”

“What has that got to do with it?” Virgil spluttered.

The manager stared at Virgil, trying to see if he was serious or if he was laughing at her. “Because you could not possibly have written that letter.”

“You’re right, he didn’t. I did.” Roman said. “Why is it so hard to believe that I wrote Virgil a letter in 1863? People wrote letters for hundreds of years before that, you’re a museum curator, you should know that!”

Now the manager was sure that they were just messing with her. “You cannot seriously think I’m falling for this. Nobody who was alive in 1862 is alive now. Now, I’m very busy this afternoon—“

“Dear lady, you are mistaken. As you can see with your own eyes, _we_ are still alive. Vampires are immortal.” Roman said, trying to remain kind but slowly losing his patience.

The manager rolled her eyes. “Vampires do not exist, gentlemen. Now please—“

Virgil hissed at her. “We very clearly do exist as we are standing in front of you right now. Now _do_ we get our letter back, or do we _not?”_

“You do not, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the manager said.

Roman finally snapped and whipped out his sword. “Oh my gosh I’m going to kill you with my bare hands! And this sword!” he yelled, without the slightest intention of doing either.

That was when they got security called on them.

After getting thrown out, they sat together on the front steps of the museum in the evening sun with their arms around each other. Virgil rested his head on Roman’s shoulder. “Sorry I lost it, Princey,” he muttered.

“Don’t worry,” Roman said, resting his cheek on the top of Virgil’s soft purple hair, “I got cross too. Bloody historians.”

“No no, sorry I lost the _letter.”_

“Oh,” Roman hugged Virgil tighter. “Don’t worry. I’ll write you a dozen more, just like it.” 

They sat there in companionable silence and contemplated the nature of time together as the sun set over the city.


	2. Fight or Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s some undead shenanigans at the airport! Roman decides to take the love of his life, Virgil, to Rome on their seventh hundred anniversary. But getting through the airport is turning out to be way harder than the two vampires expected.

“My darkest darling! Stormcloud!” Roman yelled as he spotted Virgil across the nighttime carpark. Though they usually lived at each other’s houses, they’d gone back to their separate homes to pack, and now they were meeting up in the car park of London Heathrow Airport, ready for their big adventure.

Virgil had not gone abroad since Roman had persuaded him last time in 1920 and he’d never flown across the English Channel. He’d sailed abroad several times, but commercial flight hadn’t exactly been trending for most of his long life, and when some bright spark had finally come up with the idea of launching humans into the sky in a big metal tube, Virgil hadn’t seen the appeal. He just wasn’t big on leaving his familiar Scottish castle home: there were too many dangers for a vampire in new places. Anything he needed to do, he could get done in his familiar bubble.

Now Roman had at last persuaded him to visit Italy with him for their seventh hundred anniversary which was in just a few days (according to Virgil; Roman was terrible at keeping track so he had to rely on him). They were going to stay for a long weekend in Rome.

Roman was a vampire—and so was Virgil. Virgil had read every vampire book from Dracula to Twilight, and based his looks around a mad amalgamation of all of them. He wore constant heavy black eyeliner and eyeshadow which had the double effect of making him both stand out and blend in. He liked to think he was bony and menacing, but in reality he was large in every direction (and menacing), swathed either in a big black swishy cloak or, in public, a large black and purple hoodie and enormous headphones to scare off any attempts at social interaction.

Roman, better known a very long time ago as Sir Roman The Brave (or so he claimed—the Brave bit might have been a little embellishment on his part), was a knight who had gone on a quest to defeat a dark shadowy evil creature who was threatening Christendom with spookiness and unholy music. That was how he had met Virgil and was reported to have died tragically at his monstrous hands. It had been a terrible shame really--but they’d been best friends and lovers ever since. He was short, sensitive about it, and wore heeled boots (with spurs of course) to make up for it. Unlike Virgil, he preferred to keep wearing medieval princely attire, his favourite piece of which was his sword, which came second only to Virgil in his affections.

Virgil pulled off his large headphones and waved. They ran over to each other and Roman made to pick him up in bridal style. Upon realising he was far too heavy for that, he settled for sweeping him into a deep dip, and punctuated the gesture with a loving kiss on the lips.

He pushed Roman away playfully. “Ugh, Princey, you know I hate it when you do that,” but despite his wry words, he was smiling as he said it. He stood up straight, took Roman’s head gently in his hands and kissed him _properly,_ as if they’d been apart for years instead of merely a week.

“Aww, my chemical romantic! How are you feeling about our trip?” Roman asked, taking his hand. It was cold and shaking.

“I’m fucking terrified,” he answered honestly, flicking up the hood of his purple hoodie. “What if we get robbed? What if someone finds out what we are and, like, threatens us with crucifixes? What if we miss the plane? What if we get on the wrong flight and end up in some random place we shouldn’t be in? What if the plane crashes? What if I, I dunno, accidentally eat garlic somehow? What if _you_ accidentally eat garlic and I end up all alone in this cruel world? What if—”

Roman squeezed his hand in sympathy and interrupted his worries with a reassuring voice and a confident smile. “Relax, we’ll be fine. We just have to be careful, is all!” Roman locked his car, a humble Ford, and pulled up the handle on his wheely suitcase. “Now, I have to remember, I’m parked in zone C3. C3.”

“Like Star Wars,” Virgil said, as they headed to the lifts up to the main terminal entrance.

“Like what?”

“Princey, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Star Wars. Dude, come on, it’s been around for years!”

Roman pressed the button for the lifts, and squinted at him.

“Where have you _been_ these last few decades?” Virgil said, shaking his head in disbelief. He stepped into the lift as the door opened.

Roman followed him. “Well, mostly living with you in your damp spooky gothic castle being forced to listen to _Welcome to the Black Parade_ being blasted from the ramparts,” he grumbled.

“I’m a _vampire._ I have a _reputation_ to protect, Rolo. It’s for the _aesthetic.”_ Virgil said.

They stood in the lift, still holding hands, passively watching the floor numbers change on the screen. The lift dinged open, and they headed for the main doors of the airport.

“Is that your suitcase from 1920?” Virgil asked, peering at it with an unimpressed squint.

“It’s antique, apparently. Worth a lot,” Roman said defensively. “A prince well styled leaves the gentlemen beguiled!” 

Virgil snorted. “It’s falling to bits! And what other gentlemen are you trying to beguile anyway?”

Roman, distracted by Virgil, crashed head first into the automatic doors with a thud and a dramatic whine of pain. 

Virgil squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, not wanting to see what damage Roman had taken. What if he was bleeding? Had a concussion? Had been knocked out?

“Wine of my dark soul? Babe?” Roman touched him on the shoulder.

“Fuck, Princey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It happens to me all the time.” Roman said grumpily, fixing his hair. “The last few decades have been sorely trying on my nervous system, what with the grudge sensors have for vampires. They just refuse to register me. Quite purposefully ignore me, really. _Me,_ Sir Roman the Brave! I miss the age of Shakespeare,” he sighed.

He and Virgil walked slowly back and forth in front of the automatic door. The sensor didn’t pick them up. They jumped up and down and waved. The doors remained stubbornly shut. 

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this...” Virgil sighed.

“We’re going to miss our flight at this rate,” Roman yelled in frustration. “You shall not stand between us and our journey!”

Virgil tried swearing at them, and Roman tried to remember some old opening spells that had never worked. 

He was just about to try to manually pry open the doors by sticking his sword between them when another person walked up to the doors, giving the pair a funny look. The doors opened easily.

Roman and Virgil darted inside before the doors could shut on them again.

“Disgraceful. Whatever happened to accessibility and equity?” Roman huffed.

“Let’s just hope Italy doesn’t have a lot of automatic doors,” Virgil said in a tired voice. “We’re already fifteen and a half minutes behind the schedule we were _supposed_ to follow.”

They headed for the baggage check to hand in their suitcases without further mishap. When the lady spotted Roman’s medieval sword swinging jauntily from his hip though, she was less happy. “They won’t allow that kind of sword on the plane you know,” she warned. “Far outside regulation length.”

Virgil squinted at her. “There are _regulations_ of what you can take on a flight?”

“But it’s hand luggage! It wouldn’t fit in the suitcase!” Roman protested.

The lady sighed. “In that case you can’t take it with you.”

“But my dear lady, I must have my sword! Else how will I shave?” He asked, highly offended.

The lady looked from one to the other, finally settling on Virgil’s face. “Does he actually—”

“Yeah, he’s always been extra, even when he was alive,” Virgil shrugged. 

“He what—” the lady began, but Virgil interrupted her.

“It’s all cool, like, we don’t want to be arrested or anything, so like, could you tell us if there’s anywhere we could put it for safekeeping until we get back?” He asked.

“Yh—yeah, there are some lockers right along there,” the lady gestured, frowning in confusion.

“Great Scott, you’re not planning to stash my dear sword in a locker?” Roman yelped.

“Princey, no one says Great Scott anymore, and yes, we are.” Virgil threw an apologetic look at the lady and pulled Roman off in the direction of the lockers.

In response, Roman retreated into muttering in all the slang he’d picked up over the centuries just to annoy Virgil. “Thou great bumbling buffoon, who does that big cheese think she is, telling me to yeet the sword! What a bunch of baloney! And thou lily-livered goose, my darlin’ babe, thou didst not have the balls to tell her exactly where to put her hooter! Gag me with a spoon! What kind of partner in crime are you?”

“One who doesn’t want to get chucked in the clink with a stake through the heart,” Virgil muttered. “And now look, we’re half an hour later than we planned already, we’re going to miss the plane at this rate!”

“Do you mind if I just nip to the bathroom?” Roman said, spotting the bathroom sign.

“Fine, I’ll go grab us a locker. Give me your sword,” Virgil said. He gave it to him and they swung off in different directions.

The bathroom trip proved to be more challenging than Roman had anticipated. Heathrow, being rather fancy among airports, had begun the (in Roman’s opinion) rather deplorable practice of putting sensors in the place of handles and buttons. He tried to flush, waving his vampire hand back and forth in front of the sensor, to no avail. There wasn’t even an accompanying button he could use instead. In the end, he had to put the lid down and leave it with a silent apology to whoever was next.

The taps also operated off sensors. Luckily for Roman, someone had recently left one of the taps running. He washed his hands cheerily singing Greensleeves, staring into the mirror at nothing in particular, wishing he had a reflection so he could check his appearance as he brushed his hair back to how he liked it. 

Before he’d nearly got through his conscientious twenty seconds of rubbing the soap in, the tap turned itself off. “By the hair gel of good king Charlemagne!” He yelled in frustration, waving his hands underneath it, damning the curse of vampires to be undetectable by infrared. It was a cold twist of fate… pun not intended.

At that moment, a bald man in a suit came out of the stall behind him. “Oh, thank Artemis, I’m saved. My dear sir, please could I trouble you to wave your hand just under here to start the tap for me? It doesn’t seem to be working.”

The man gave him a funny look but obliged. As he looked up from the tap, however, he caught his own reflection in the mirrors. Roman hoped for a moment that the man wouldn’t notice that although he was standing right beside him, there was only one person in the mirror. In his experience, humans were remarkable at not noticing things. But today he was unlucky. The man did a double take.

“Wot the everluvving duck,” he breathed.

“You know you can just say ‘fuck’ like a normal person, right?” Roman said, quirking an eyebrow at the man as if _he_ was the odd one here.

The man pointed at the mirror with a shaking finger. “Your reflection… it’s not there!”

Damn. Luckily, Roman had dealt with a similar situation before (that had involved a countess rather smitten with her own beauty and an annoyingly persistent butler). “What on earth are you talking about, my dear fellow? Of course it’s there. Right where it should be. Nothing suspicious at _all!”_

“But I swear—it’s not—” 

“I’ll have no more low tricks, thou scurvy knave! Jiminy Cricket, what cads young people are these days. Are you trying to convince me I’m a vampire or something? Well it’s not working.” Roman finished washing his hands and marched away, pretending to be offended. He headed regally for the blow dryers and waved his hands under them. “Bull’s pizzle and stock fish!” he yelled incoherently as it refused to turn on. Finally defeated by the bathroom, Sir Roman The Brave stormed out, wiping his wet hands on the back of his trousers.

Virgil, having more successfully navigated the lockers, was waiting for him outside. Seeing him frazzled, he kissed him on the forehead. “Come on, let’s just get through security already. We’re forty-five minutes behind schedule and losing margin too fast for my liking,” he said gloomily.

They joined the short queue to go through security. Virgil got a couple of trays and unburdened himself of his small travel backpack, his iPhone, iPod, Kindle, headphones, backup earbuds, backup Nokia phone, laptop, iPad, five or six different chargers, and his black suede shoes he’d bought from an elizabethan cobbler and had customised with some modern purple shoelaces. “It’s on the signs, you have to take everything off. Well, not everything, but everything except your clothes,” he told Roman. “Then you put it in the trays to be scanned by the special machine thing.”

“They want to disarm me?” Roman said, looking at the machine as if it had just insulted his mother.

“Yes. You need to hand over your weapons.”

Roman looked horrified. “This knight shall never surrender! Dost thou take me for a pigeon-livered coward? I shall give them nothing!” he cried, crossing his arms indignantly.

“Rolo, we’re going on a plane, not into an enemy’s den.” Virgil explained patiently. “They need to know what you have, just in case.”

“In case of what?” he grumbled.

“Just hand over the weapons?” Virgil said.

Roman sighed with all the combined drama of a vampire and a theatre nerd, oblivious to the stares of the other passengers and staff. He pulled out a dagger from his boot, a knife from his belt, and another dagger that was strapped to his back and laid them gently on the tray.

Virgil glared at him with his hands on his hips. _“All_ of them, Princey,”

Roman rolled his eyes, pulled out two more penknives from his trousers, a second dagger from his back and a hunting knife from inside his jacket. A small crowd had gathered to watch.

Virgil sighed. “I said all of them.”

He pulled out one last tiny dagger from his other boot.

Virgil smiled and kissed him. “Thanks. Don’t worry, they’ll be safe.”

“You do know you can’t take these on the plane, right?” asked the man operating the scanner.

 _“What?!”_ Roman yelled, scandalized.

One hour and two trips to the locker later, they were finally ready to go through security. Virgil had a headache coming on, and he knew the security fiasco was not done yet. Their flight left in half an hour, and he was getting anxious about missing it.

Disarmed and unburdened, they walked up to the security scanner gate. Roman stood on tiptoe for Virgil to whisper in his ear. “Remember, the scanner won’t detect us. When they ask, play dumb. That should be easy enough.” Virgil told him, “They have to think it’s the scanner that’s broken, not us.”

Waved on by the TSA agent, Roman walked through the scanner slowly in his socks (which were red with little crowns on—socks were one kind of more modern clothing that he did enjoy). “That’s weird,” the TSA agent commented as the scanner didn’t register, “just go back and try that again for me will you?”

When the scanner still failed to register, Roman exclaimed, “By the barnacles of the British Navy, that’s _unbelievable!”_ and glanced at Virgil conspiratorially. Virgil just widened his eyes and hissed at him under his breath.

The TSA agent looked at him suspiciously, but waved Virgil through to test whether it was working on him. It didn’t, unsurprisingly for him, but surprisingly for the agents. “Sorry, gents, if you’ll just step aside, please…” 

Virgil and Roman waited to one side as the agents ran a few quick tests on the machine and went back and forth through it. Of course, it worked perfectly. “Well, this is most unnatural,” the agent said in a thick cockney accent.

“One might almost say… _supernatural,”_ Roman said, waving his hands around in the air for effect.

Virgil gave him an annoyed but gentle punch on the arm. “Shut up, you’re gonna get our asses busted!” he hissed. “Besides, it’s preternatural, not supernatural. Supernatural is, like, for God and stuff. Preternatural is more—our line.”

“One might almost say… _preternatural,”_ Roman repeated, waving his hands around for effect.

“What did you say?” The TSA agent asked, coming over to them.

 _“Nothing!”_ The pair cried in unison, giving the agent matching grins.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to give you two gents a pat-down,” the agent told them.

Virgil looked horrified, nervously biting his lips as he grabbed at the insides of his pockets in frustration. “But our plane leaves in an hour!” His breathing quickened, what if they missed it? They were surely going to miss it at this rate and the agents would find out they were vampires and stakes and garlic and crucifixes and all kinds of horrible things would happen—Roman took his hand and squeezed it, grounding him somewhat with loving concern in his brown eyes.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be as quick as we can,” the agent said.

They started with Roman, making him stand in a T-shape, patting him down and running hand scanners over him. Luckily, they were the sort of scanners that only beeped if they picked up something wrong; since they weren’t picking up anything, they didn’t go off.

Awkwardly, Roman attempted to make conversation. “You must work hard here, looks like quite the _blood,_ sweat and tears,”

“Wot?” The agent asked.

Virgil shifted uncomfortably. “Princey…”

“Boring too. Must be nice to have a puzzle to _dig your teeth into_ for once.” Roman grinned, showing off his rather too prominent canines.

“Princey, please shut up?” Virgil pleaded, checking his watch.

The agent frowned. “What is the purpose of your journey?” He asked, half conversationally, half suspiciously.

Roman brightened. “We’re going to Rome for a long weekend. It’s our seven hundredth anniversary and I wanted to do something special to celebrate.”

“Seven _hundredth?”_ the agent asked.

Virgil felt the panic rising, eyes darting around the room for a moment before locking back onto his darling dumbass. _“Roman!”_

Roman shot him an apologetic glance. “Seven hundredth? I meant seventh!” he gave a nervous laugh. “I’m so silly!”

“Wait, you’re gay?” said the agent.

“Uh… yeah?” Virgil tried to frantically remember whether being gay was legal this year. It kept changing, so how was he to keep track? What if it wasn’t and they got arrested?

The agent’s face cleared and he let out a long _“Oh!_ That explains a lot. Tracey, we won’t be needing the rice!” he called to the other agent.

The other agent rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t going to bring you any. Dave, we’ve been over this, vampires don’t exist, no matter how much you love Twilight.”

Dave, in the middle of patting Roman down, sat back on his heels and eyed the pair. “Better to be safe than sorry. Can you bring some anyway?”

Rice? Oh fuck. Oh no. Yet another downside to being a vampire was the need to compulsively count everything. Virgil had put that to good use with seven degrees in economics, some smart trading, and extremely long term investments that enabled him to afford his castle, but when they had to catch a plane, a jar full of rice spilled in front of them was the last thing they needed. “No, no, please no rice, that’s really—really not necessary—” 

The TSA agent, who had just finished scanning Roman, frowned at him in suspicion.

“He’s highly allergic?” Roman said, trying to diffuse the situation.

Virgil checked his watch, put his shoes on and repacked his bag. “Roman, come on.”

Roman knew Virgil was serious, and got his things together with all speed.

“Sir?” Dave said, “we still have to scan you down, you can’t leave—” 

Virgil hissed at him, showing his fangs. “Watch me!” He picked up his bags and ran, wishing he had super-speed. Some superpowers would come in really handy right now. 

“Stop! Hi, stop! Tracey, the rice! _Bring the rice!”_ the TSA agent yelled.

Virgil held out his hand to Roman. Hand in hand, they weaved through groups of people, dashed up some escalators, and skidded to a halt outside a perfume shop (one of about fourteen in the airport, which was about fourteen more than could possibly be necessary, but at least tired and annoyed passengers were able to gaze upon the advertised face of Natalie Portman to relieve their sorrows).

“We could hide in the business lounge?” Roman suggested, panting. 

“No time, we’ll be boarding in ten minutes!” Virgil cried, looking wildly around at the maze of passages and gate numbers.

“Gate nine, it’s this way,” Roman said, tugging Virgil along. It was a bit of a way and they got lost twice, but they made it just in time for the priority boarding. Roman had, of course, insisted on travelling business class.

As they finally boarded and sat back in their seats, Virgil heaved a sigh, whether of relief or mentally preparing himself for his very first overseas flight, Roman could not tell. He took Virgil’s cheek tenderly in his hand, and turned his sweetheart to face him. “Hey, hey. It’s going to be okay. Look at me, my Shadowling.”

Virgil took Roman’s hand and kissed it softly. “How have we been together for seven hundred years and yet you can still always find new nicknames for me?” he asked fondly, the corner of his mouth twisting into a lopsided smile.

Roman forewent answering the compliment to his creativity in favour of leaning in and placing a gentle kiss on Virgil’s lips. He rested their foreheads together. “Our love will never grow old, my darling. Happy anniversary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to my beta, Romeo, who did an absolutely stellar job on making this the best it could be!


End file.
